M&M-finding app shows potential of military's 'digital kids'

033012mmNGins (Mar. 30) - Adam Rountree/AP file photo

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The military services must be sure to leverage the skills of the "digital kids" who fill their ranks, a Marine commander told an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association conference this week.

It is with those digital kids -- not hardware -- that a high-tech military will forge its future, said Marine Brig. Gen. David Coffman, deputy director of operations for the National Military Command Center. This became clear, he said, when young troops under his command in the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, operating in an Amphibious Ready Group off the Horn of Africa in 2011, took technology matters into their own hands.

The Marines went ashore at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti equipped only with a long-range, high-frequency military radio for communications, Coffman recalled. But when he flew in a few weeks later to visit them, he discovered they had developed a broadband wireless network on their own, through an agreement with a local network service provider.

The Wi-Fi network allowed them to use technology, including iPhones and Skype, that was far more advanced than the high-frequency radios their command had provided, which date back to 1915, to talk to family members at their home base of Camp Pendleton, Calif.

This got Coffman thinking about how the digital kids could help address another less-than-ideal fact of life at the camp: difficulty locating MREs, or meals ready to eat, with good snacks, particularly M&M's. He said he figured there was a Marine at the camp who had taken an inventory of the various MREs -- and their accessory packets.

Sure enough, Coffman said, a young Marine whipped out his iPhone, and showed him an app that listed every permutation of MREs and the accompanying snacks.

This experience at an austere base camp in a poor country where young Marines did for themselves what their command did not do hints at the possibilities if troops are encouraged develop and use relevant, secure systems, Coffman said.

But the tech-savvy youngsters require equally savvy managers, he cautioned, especially those who are on ships or with deployed units operating in bandwidth-constrained environments. Young Marines expect to be able to access their Facebook and YouTube accounts wherever they are and this gobbles up bandwidth, he noted.

The bandwidth problem can be addressed partly by limiting networks use, Coffman said. For instance, he restricted 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit troops on ships such as the USS Comstock to dot-mil networks at certain times of the day. A low-ranking lance corporal on that ship was allocated the bulk of the bandwidth. Why? The E-3 was running the unit's payroll, Coffman said.